January 18 – The Holocaust: The SS begins evacuation of Auschwitz concentration camp. Nearly 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to other locations in Germany; as many as 15,000 die. The 7,000 too sick to move are left without supplies being distributed.

February 8 – The Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, championed by the charismatic native leader, Elizabeth Peratrovich. The territorial Senate voted on the bill and it was passed, after being defeated just two years before in 1943 by the territorial legislature.

The German garrison in Poznań capitulates to Red Army and Polish troops.

Bombing of Pforzheim: Heaviest of a series of bombing raids on Pforzheim in Germany by Allied aircraft is carried out by the British Royal Air Force. As many as 17,600 people, or 31.4% of the town's population, are killed in the raid and about 83% of the town's buildings destroyed, two-thirds of its complete area and between 80 and 100% of the inner city.

February 28 – In Bucharest, a violent demonstration takes place, during which the bolşevic group opens fire on the army and protesters. In response, Andrei Y. Vishinsky, USSR vice commissioner of foreign affairs and president of the Allied Control Commission for Romania, travels to Bucharest to compel Nicolae Rădescu to resign as premier.

Adolf Hitler privately concedes defeat in his underground Berlin bunker after learning Felix Steiner cannot mobilize enough men to launch a counterattack on the Soviet Union which has just broken through Germany.

April 23 – WWII: Hermann Göring sends the Göring Telegram to Hitler seeking confirmation that he should take over leadership of Germany in accordance with the decree of 29 June 1941. Hitler regards this as treason.

Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are executed by Italian partisans as they attempt to flee the country. Their bodies are then hung by their heels in the public square of Milan Piazzale Loreto.

German surrender at Lüneburg Heath: All German armed forces in northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands surrender unconditionally to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, officially coming into effect on May 5 at 08:00 hours British Double (and German) Summer Time.

Canadian soldiers liberate the city of Amsterdam from Nazi occupation.

A Japanese fire balloon kills six people, Elsie Mitchell and five children, near Bly, Oregon, when it explodes as they drag it from the woods. These are the only people killed by an enemy attack on the American mainland during WWII.

May 7 – WWII: General Alfred Jodl signs the unconditional German Instrument of Surrender at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war, officially coming into effect on May 8 at 23:01 hours Central European Time (00:01 hours May 9 German Summer Time).

May 28 – U.S.-born Irish-raised William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") is captured. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio, convicted, and then hanged in January 1946.

August 7 – U.S. President Harry Truman announces the successful atomic bombing of Hiroshima while he is returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

American troops occupy southern Korea, while the Soviet Union occupies the north, with the dividing line being the 38th parallel of latitude. This arrangement proves to be the indirect beginning of a divided Korea which will lead to the Korean War in 1950.

Assembly of the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC), is completed in the United States, covering 1,800 square feet (170 m2) of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.